Feeling the heat? Hendrie Weisinger on how to cool down the stress.
_____
If you’re feeling you’re always on the run, have to continually produce results, can’t afford to fail, others are depending you, frequently questioning your capabilities, feel burdened daily but can’t take the time to rest, feel the need to please others, and that you are carrying the weight of the world upon your shoulder, you don’t need a psychologist to tell you your under a lot of pressure.
Unlike stress that sometimes can help arouse us to meet the demands of life, pressure — the feeling you have to be successful or experience negative consequences, never helps you. Hundreds of empirical studies conducted world wide clearly indicate pressure is a villain in your life —it sabotages your work performance and adds distress to your personal relationships. When you are under pressure, you feel the heat and are not a happy camper.
You can’t escape pressure but you can learn to depressurize and to minimize the injurious effects of pressure and lessen the distressful feelings that daily pressure creates. Here are 7 tips to turn down the heat.
- Think Challenges and Opportunities. Do you see high-pressure situations as threatening or as challenging? Seeing pressure as a threat undermines your self-confidence, elicits fear of failure, impairs your attention, short-term memory and judgment; and spurs impulsive behavior. It also saps your energy. Rising to the challenge is an inherent performance steroid. No one thrives on pressure but we all thrive on challenge. Integrate the words “challenge” and “opportunities” into your thinking.
- Think Multiple Opportunities. Before any high-pressured moment, remind yourself that this is just one of many opportunities. Under pressure, most people engage in a chance of a lifetime opportunity. They think, “This is the only chance I will ever get so I better not blow it.” In fact, most of us cannot remember how many “most important tests” we have taken. Cool down by remembering there is always a second chance.
- Anticipate, Anticipate, Anticipate. What if you were told a minute before your audition that you have to act each week exactly as planned. Anticipating glitches enables you to build your confidence by practicing or mentally rehearsing them and it teaches you to be adaptive in any high-pressured moment. This lends a sense of control, something we lose when we are under pressure.
- Focus on Your Own Excellence. Many feel constant pressure because they are continually competing with others to be the best. Competition creates win-lose situations. It is too much pressure to win all the time and nobody likes to lose. Since there is always someone better, trying to be the best is an endless pursuit and crates endless pressure. Instead of comparing and ranking yourself to others, take a page from the most elite athletes focus on developing your own excellence rather than beating others and you will be the best you can. You’ll feel better.
- Appreciate Your Life. Get in the habit of taking a few minutes a day to reflect on the positives in your life. When we are under pressure, we tend to see the world with pessimism that saps our energy and hope and make the pressure we do experience even more difficult to manage. Be appreciative of what you have and you will find yourself becoming more optimistic and approach the world with positive expectations. Feeling pressured decreases.
- Be a Control Freak. Worrying about things you can’t control waste needless energy and increases your feelings of pressure. Instead, navigate your life more effectively by understanding what you can influence. You will feel more empowered and less pressure.
- Add Enthusiasm. Since the dawn of man, enthusiasm has been the nemesis of pressure. Rather than wat for external events to make you enthusiastic, do it yourself by laughing and smiling. A good beginning is to pay attention to the silly things you do and others do; relieve past funny experiences, and giving out smiles to those you see daily. Laughing and smiling increase the amount of endorphins that create positive physical arousal or “internal jogging.” The more enthusiasm you experience daily, the less pressure you feel.
Build these pressure solutions into your life and you will feel a lot cooler — you’ve depressurized!
_____
Photo credit: Getty Images
